Should Not Disclosing Your HIV Status Be a Crime?

In 2007, Donald Bogardus contracted HIV from his long-term partner. When he later had unprotected sex with a man who didn't know Bogardus was HIV positive, he was charged under an Iowa law that criminalizes the transmission of HIV. "I wanted to tell him," Bogardus told the Daily Iowan, "but when I went to say it, I clammed up…I was afraid he was going to blab it out to everybody." Now Bogardus—a church-going, nursing-home worker with cerebral palsy and a pet goldfish named Survivor—faces 25 years in prison and lifelong sex offender status. For many opponents of criminal HIV transmission statutes, who argue that they are ineffective at preventing transmission...